Why the Gift of Prophecy Is Not the Usual Way of Knowing God's Will

I appeal to you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of
God, to present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and
acceptable to God, which is your spiritual worship. Do not be
conformed to this world but be transformed by the renewal of your
mind, that you may prove what is the will of God, what is good and
acceptable and perfect.

We have spent two weeks on the gift of prophecy, defending its
relevance today and defining it. We said last Sunday evening that
the gift of prophecy is a very different thing than the verbally
inspired speech of the apostles and prophets who wrote Scripture.
It is based on a spontaneous revelation from the Holy Spirit, but
it is fallible and in need of sifting because our perception of the
revelation and our thought about it and our delivery of it are all
fallible. The Bible teaches that the very words of Scripture are
inspired (2 Timothy 3:16). But the spiritual gift of prophecy is
different from the inspiration of Scripture. It does not guarantee
that the report of God's revelation will be infallible. Instead the
Bible teaches us to test these prophecies and hold fast to whatever
is good. In fact it teaches that much good—much edification—is
to be expected from such timely words in the congregation.

The Danger of Overestimating Prophecy's Role

Now what I want to try to show today is that this gift of
prophecy is not meant by God to be the usual way we should make
decisions about the will of God. I think this is necessary to say
because the discovery of a new spiritual reality almost always
makes us overestimate its role in the Christian life. I think this
is especially true of prophecy. If God really speaks today (we
begin to feel), then surely this is the way to know his will about
jobs and mates and investments and purchases and travel plans. And
pretty soon we tend to forsake the language of wisdom and insight
and reason and persuasion, and instead use the language of "God
told me to do this," and "God told me to do that" about almost
everything.

So what I want to do first with some examples is to show you
that Paul himself, who believed so much in the gift of prophecy,
did not live his own life by constant words from the Lord or
encourage others to.

How Paul Thought Through Life Decisions

For example, in Philippians 2:25 he said, "I have thought it
necessary to send to you Epaphroditus." The word is "reckon." I
have reckoned that it is necessary to send him. He did not get a
revelation from the Lord. He "reckoned" with the needs and the
circumstances and the principles of Scripture and made his
decision, confident that it pleased the Lord.

Another example is in 1 Corinthians 16:4 where he describes his
plans like this: "If it seems advisable for me to go also, they
will accompany me." The word for "advisable" is "fitting" or
"worthy." Paul is asking about the fitness of the decision. He
anticipates being led not by a prophetic revelation in this case,
but by a sober assessment of what is fitting and advisable in view
of the situation and what he knows of God.

He advises others the same way. To the Corinthians who are
embroiled in a dispute between some members, he does not counsel
them to ask for a prophecy; he says, "Can it be that there is no
man among you wise enough to decide between members of the
brotherhood?" (1 Corinthians 6:5). He expects that spiritual wisdom should
be used in the ordinary course of life to settle matters that
arise.

So we are alerted not to carry our enthusiasm for prophecy
beyond limits. It is not supposed to become the usual way we make
the hundreds of decisions that we must make each day.

Why Did God Set Things Up This Way?

Why do you think this might be? I think the basic reason is
this: if you live your life not on the basis of spiritual wisdom
but on the basis of external revelations, you are not compelled to
deal so deeply with the corruption of your own heart and mind. It
is possible for a servant to hear the commands of his master and do
them without really loving his master or being like him. But if the
master refrains from telling the servant the details of what he
wants done, and simply says, "Go now, and be a good representative
for me in what you choose," then the servant is forced to consider
what his master is really like and how deeply his own heart and
mind conform to the heart and mind of the master.

God wants conformity to his Son Jesus Christ (Romans 8:29), not
just external compliance with instructions. He wants us to see the
way he sees and desire the way he desires and assess the way he
assesses and be repelled by what repels him. And so he does not
short-circuit all this inner transformation of likeness to Christ
when he calls us to do his will.

Three Crucial Aspects of Confirming God's Will

We can see this most clearly in Romans 12:2. As Paul makes the
great turn from the weighty theological matters of chapters 9–11 to
the practical considerations of chapters 12–15, he says right at the
outset that the basic means of doing the will of God is a mental
ability to prove or confirm what is the will of God. "Do not be
conformed to this world but be transformed by the renewal of your
mind, that you may prove what is the will of God, what is good and
acceptable and perfect."

This verse shows us at least three crucial things about
confirming what the will of God is.

First it shows us that the will of God must be "proved," that
is, it must be examined and verified and embraced. " . . . that you
may prove what the will of God is . . . "

The second thing it shows us is that this examining and
verifying and accepting is done by the Christian mind: "Be
transformed in the renewal of your mind, that you may prove . . . "
It is the mind of the Christian that does the proving of the will
of God.

Third, it shows us that for this to happen the mind must be
renewed. "Be transformed in the renewal of your mind, that you may
prove . . . " Ordinary human thinking will not be able to examine
and verify and embrace the good and acceptable and perfect will of
God.

So you can see, can't you, why God would not make prophecy the
usual means of finding his will? If he did, it would minimize, or
even evade, this utterly necessary transformation and renewal that
is so crucial. God does not want mere external compliance to a set
of rules or even a set of prophecies. He wants a people who are
deeply, deeply different from the world in the kind of minds that
they have. He wants us to have minds that think the way he thinks
and see the way he sees and feel the way he feels so that they
choose the way he chooses. Therefore he doesn't tell us to leave
thinking behind and listen for messages. He tells us to be changed,
be transformed, be metamorphosed in the way we think. "Be
transformed in the renewal of your mind."

How Can We Be Transformed in Our Minds?

How then shall we be transformed in this way? How can we make
our minds new so that we don't think the way the world thinks but
the way God thinks about what is good and bad, helpful and harmful,
beautiful and ugly, true and false? Let me point you to four biblical steps.

1. Recognize Your Need for Renovation

Recognize that you are in need of a deep renovation of the
mind.

Ephesians 4:17–18 describes what we are all like apart from this
renovation. "Now this I affirm and testify in the Lord, that you
must no longer live as the Gentiles do, in the futility of their
minds; they are darkened in their understanding, alienated from the
life of God because of the ignorance that is in them, due to their
hardness of heart."

The reason I said we need a deep renovation of the mind is
because the root of our futile thinking goes down deep into the
hardness of our heart. If you follow Paul's thought backwards up
from the root of hard-heartedness to the terrible fruit of futility,
it goes like this: hardness of heart gives rise to blameworthy
ignorance, which gives rise to alienation from God, which gives
rise to a pervasive darkness of understanding, which gives rise to
incredible uses of the human mind in the service of futility. When
the heart is out of love with God, the mind knows not what it is
for. It stumbles like a genius in the dark along a precipice of
destruction. Can you think of anything more tragic and painfully
ironic than thousands of brilliant men and women of intellect
hearing the final sentence: "Your thinking was futile; I never knew
you."

So the first step in the renewal of our minds is to recognize
the need for deep renovation of heart and mind.

2. Depend on the Holy Spirit

The second step to a renewed mind that proves the will of God
is to depend on the Holy Spirit.

Paul says in Titus 3:5 that "God saved us not because of deeds
done by us in righteousness, but in virtue of his own mercy, by the
washing of regeneration and renewal in the Holy Spirit." The
renewing agent is the Holy Spirit. We cannot make ourselves new. It
is a supernatural divine work of God's Spirit. It is just as
wonderful as the Spirit's revelation in the gift of prophecy. And
it is more wonderful than prophecy because Satan can copy prophecy
in soothsaying and sorcery, but Satan cannot copy the renewal of
the mind in righteousness and holiness. The main work of the Holy
Spirit is not to give us prophecies about the will of God but to
change
us into new, holy people who know and love the will of
God.

So the second step to mental newness is to depend on the Holy
Spirit. Humbly rely on him and not yourself.

3. Pray for Spiritual Understanding

Pray for the Spirit to give you spiritual understanding that
can prove the will of God.

We know that Paul made this a top priority for his churches
because this is what he prays for them again and again. For example
in Philippians 1:9–10, "It is my prayer that your love may abound
more and more, with knowledge and all discernment, so that you may
approve what is excellent." Love abounding with knowledge and
insight is the renewal of the mind that can examine and verify and
embrace things that are excellent. And Paul pursues it by
prayer.

Colossians 1:9 is another example: "We have not ceased to pray
for you, asking that you may be filled with the knowledge of his
will in all spiritual wisdom and understanding." Do we want to be
filled with the knowledge of God's will? Yes. That is our heart's
desire! Then (according to Paul) we need spiritual wisdom and
understanding—that is, we need to be renewed in the "spirit
of our minds" (Ephesians 4:23). And that is what Paul prays for "without
ceasing." "We have not ceased to pray for you . . . "

So the third step to a renewed mind is to pray for it. Ask,
seek, knock. Will not your Father give the Holy Spirit to those who
ask him (Luke 11:13)?

4. Focus on the Glory of God

The fourth step is to focus your attention on the glory of
God.

You can see this most clearly in 2 Corinthians 3:18, "And we all
with unveiled face, beholding the glory of the Lord, are being
changed into his likeness from one degree of glory to another; for
this comes from the Lord who is the Spirit." Beholding the glory of
the Lord we are being changed. You become like what you behold.

You live like what you look at most.

Consider 2 Corinthians 4:16–18, "So we do not lose heart. Though
our outer nature is wasting away, our inner nature is being renewed
every day. For this slight momentary affliction is preparing for us
an eternal weight of glory beyond all comparison, because we look
not to the things that are seen but to the things that are unseen.
For the things that are seen are transient, but the things that are
unseen are eternal."

Daily renewal of the inner person—the person who proves
what the will of God is—that renewal comes from looking not
at the world with all its fleeting glory, but at the unseen things
of eternity which are radiant with the glory of God.

Conclusion

So I affirm again in closing: the gift of prophecy, precious and
edifying, is not meant to be the usual way of knowing the will of
God. Rather the usual way is by proving—by examining and
verifying and embracing—the will of God by means of a renewed
mind. So I ask you:

Do you see how deep is the need for the renovation of your
mind?

Do you trust in the work of the Holy Spirit?

Do you pray without ceasing for spiritual wisdom and
understanding?

And do you look steadily at the glory of God in things that are
eternal—in the face of Jesus Christ—in the Bible? There
is no other way to become like Christ in the world than to behold
Christ in the Word.

"Blessed is the man who walks not in the counsel of the wicked,
nor stands in the way of the sinners, nor sits in the seat of
scoffers; but his delight is in the law of the Lord and on his law
he meditates day and night." Do you? Day and night? It is the only
way. We become what we behold.

John Piper (@JohnPiper) is founder and teacher of desiringGod.org and chancellor of Bethlehem College & Seminary. For 33 years, he served as pastor of Bethlehem Baptist Church, Minneapolis, Minnesota. He is author of more than 50 books.

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